“If you likedWhere the Crawdads Sing,you’ll loveThis Tender Land...This story is as big-hearted as they come.” —Parade

The unforgettable story of four orphans who travel the Mississippi River on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression.

In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota’s Gilead River, Odie O’Banion is an orphan confined to the Lincoln Indian Training School, a pitiless place where his lively nature earns him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee after committing a terrible crime, he and his brother, Albert, their best friend, Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.

Over the course of one summer, these four orphans journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.

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From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for This Tender Land

“If you liked Where the Crawdads Sing, you’ll love This Tender Land by best-selling author William Kent Krueger. This story is as big-hearted as they come.“ —Parade Magazine

“A picaresque tale of adventure during the Great Depression. Part Grapes of Wrath, part Huckleberry Finn, Krueger’s novel is a journey over inner and outer terrain toward wisdom and freedom.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Crafted in exquisitely beautiful prose, this is a story to be treasured – outstanding and unforgettable.” —Historical Novel Review

"If you’re among the millions who raced through Where the Crawdads Sing this year and are looking for another expansive, atmospheric American saga, look to the latest from Krueger." —Entertainment Weekly

"Long, sprawling, and utterly captivating, readers will eat up every delicious word of it.” —New York Journal of Books

"Absorbing and wonderfully-paced, this fictional narrative set against historical truths mesmerizes the reader with its evocations of compassion, courage, and self-discovery. . . THIS TENDER LAND is a gripping, poignant tale swathed in both mythical and mystical overtones." —Bob Drury, New York Times bestselling author of The Heart of Everything That Is

"More than a simple journey; it is a deeply satisfying odyssey, a quest in search of self and home. Richly imagined and exceptionally well plotted and written, the novel is, most of all, a compelling, often haunting story that will captivate both adult and young adult readers." —Booklist

"Rich with graceful writing and endearing characters...this is a book for the ages." —Denver Post

Praise for Ordinary Grace, winner of the 2014 Edgar Award for Best Novel

"Pitch-perfect...I loved this book.” —Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Live by Night and The Given Day

“Krueger aims higher and hits harder with a standalone novel that shares much with his other work....A novel that transforms narrator and reader alike.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“Once in a blue moon a book drops down on your desk that demands to be read. You pick it up and read the first page, and then the second, and you are hooked. Such a book is Ordinary Grace…This is a book that makes the reader feel better just by having been exposed to the delights of the story. It will stay with you for quite some time and you will always remember it with a smile.” —Huffington Post

“The tone is much like To Kill a Mockingbird, with its combination of dread and nostalgia.”—Detroit News

About the Author

William Kent Kruegeris the New York Times bestselling author of This Tender Land, Ordinary Grace (winner of the Edgar Award for best novel), as well as eighteen acclaimed books in the Cork O’Connor mystery series, including Desolation Mountain and Sulfur Springs. He lives in the Twin Cities with his family. Learn more at WilliamKentKrueger.com.

CHAPTER ONE

ALBERT NAMED THE rat. He called it Faria.

It was an old creature, a mottle of gray and white fur. Almost always, it kept to the edges of the tiny cell, scurrying along the wall to a corner where I’d put a few crumbs of the hard biscuit that had been my meal. At night, I generally couldn’t see it but could still hear the soft rustle as it moved from the wide crack between the corner blocks, across the straw on the floor, grabbed the crumbs, and returned the way it had come. Whenever the moon was just right and bright beams streamed through the high, narrow slit that was the only window, illuminating the stones of the eastern wall, I was sometimes able to glimpse in the reflected light the slender oval of Faria’s body, its fur a dim silver blur, its thin tail roping behind like an afterthought of the animal’s creation.

The first time I got thrown into what the Brickmans called the quiet room, they tossed my older brother, Albert, in with me. The night was moonless, the tiny cell as black as pitch, our bed a thin matting of straw laid on the dirt floor, the door a great rectangle of rusted iron with a slot at the bottom for the delivery of a food plate that never held more than that one hard biscuit. I was scared to death. Later, Benny Blackwell, a Sioux from Rosebud, told us that when the Lincoln Indian Training School had been a military outpost called Fort Sibley, the quiet room had been used for solitary confinement. In those days, it had held warriors. By the time Albert and I got there, it held only children.

I didn’t know anything about rats then, except for the story about the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who’d rid the town of the vermin. I thought they were filthy creatures and would eat anything and maybe would even eat us. Albert, who was four years older and a whole lot wiser, told me that people are most afraid of things they don’t understand, and if something frightened you, you should get closer to it. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t still be an awful thing, but the awful you knew was easier to handle than the awful you imagined. So Albert had named the rat, because a name made it not just any rat. When I asked why Faria, he said it was from a book, The Count of Monte Cristo. Albert loved to read. Me, I liked to make up my own stories. Whenever I was thrown into the quiet room, I fed Faria crumbs and imagined tales about him. I looked up rats in the worn Encyclopaedia Britannica on the school library shelf and discovered that they were smart and social. Across the years and the many nights I spent in the isolation of the quiet room, I came to think of the little creature as a friend. Faria. Rat extraordinaire. Companion to misfits. A fellow captive in the dark prison of the Brickmans.

That first night in the quiet room, Albert and I were being punished for contradicting Mrs. Thelma Brickman, the school’s superintendent. Albert was twelve and I was eight. We were both new to Lincoln School. After the evening meal, which had been a watery, tasteless stew containing only a few bits of carrot, potato, something green and slimy, and a little ham gristle, Mrs. Brickman had sat at the front of the great dining hall and told all the children a story. Most dinner meals were followed by one of Mrs. Brickman’s stories. They usually contained some moral lesson she believed was important. Afterward, she would ask if there were any questions. This was a conceit, I came to understand, to make it seem as if there were an actual opportunity for dialogue with her, for the kind of conversation that might exist between a reasonable adult and a reasonable child. That evening, she’d related the story of the race between the tortoise and the hare. When she asked if there were any questions, I’d raised my hand. She’d smiled and had called on me.

“Yes, Odie?”

She knew my name. I’d been thrilled at that. Amid the sea of children, so many that I didn’t believe I would ever be able to learn all their names, she’d remembered mine. I’d wondered if maybe this was because we were so new or if it was because we were the whitest faces in a vast room full of Indian children.

“Mrs. Brickman, you said the point of the story was that being lazy is a terrible thing.”

“That’s true, Odie.”

“I thought the point of the story was that slow and steady wins the race.”

“I see no difference.” Her voice was stern, but not harsh, not yet.

“My father read that story to me, Mrs. Brickman. It’s one of Aesop’s fables. And he said—”

“He said?” Now there was something different in the way she spoke. As if she were struggling to cough up a fish bone caught in her throat. “He said?” She’d been sitting on a stool that raised her up so everyone in the dining hall could see her. She slid from the stool and walked between the long tables, girls on one side, boys on the other, toward where I sat with Albert. In the absolute silence of that great room, I could hear the squeak, squeak of her rubber heels on the old floorboards as she came. The boy next to me, whose name I didn’t yet know, edged away, as if trying to distance himself from a place where he knew lightning was about to strike. I glanced at Albert, and he shook his head, a sign that I should just clam up.

Mrs. Brickman stood over me. “He said?”

“Y-y-yes, ma’am,” I replied, stuttering but no less respectful.

“And where is he?”

“Y-y-you know, Mrs. Brickman.”

“Dead, that’s where. He is no longer present to read you stories. The stories you hear now are the ones I tell you. And they mean just what I say they mean. Do you understand me?”

“I . . . I . . .”

“Yes or no?”

She leaned toward me. She was slender, her face a delicate oval the color of a pearl. Her eyes were as green and sharp as new thorns on a rosebush. She wore her black hair long, and kept it brushed as soft as cat fur. She smelled of talcum and faintly of whiskey, an aromatic mix I would come to know well over the years.

“Yes,” I said in the smallest voice I’d ever heard come from my own lips.

“He meant no disrespect, ma’am,” Albert said.

“Was I talking to you?” The green thorns of her eyes stabbed at my brother.

“No, ma’am.”

She straightened herself and scanned the room. “Any other questions?”

I’d thought—hoped, prayed—this was the end of it. But that night, Mr. Brickman came to the dormitory room and called me out, and Albert, too. The man was tall and lean, and also handsome, many of the women at the school said, but all I saw was the fact that his eyes were nothing but black pupils, and he reminded me of a snake with legs.

That first night in the quiet room, I barely slept a wink. It was April, and there was still a chill in the wind sweeping out of the empty Dakotas. Our father was less than a week dead. Our mother had passed away two years before that. We had no kin in Minnesota, no friends, no one who knew us or cared about us. We were the only white boys in a school for Indians. How could it get any worse? Then I’d heard the rat and had spent the rest of those long, dark hours until daylight pressed against Albert and the iron door, my knees drawn up to my chin, my eyes pouring out tears that only Albert could see and that no one but him would have cared about anyway.

FOUR YEARS HAD passed between that first night and the one I’d just spent in the quiet room. I’d grown some, changed some. The old, frightened Odie O’Banion was, like my mother and father, long dead. The Odie I was now had a penchant for rebellion.

When I heard the key turn in the lock, I sat up on the straw matting. The iron door swung open and morning light poured in, blinding me for a moment.

“Sentence is up, Odie.”

Although I couldn’t see the contours of the face yet, I recognized the voice easily: Herman Volz, the old German who oversaw the carpentry shop and was the assistant boys’ adviser. The man stood in the doorway, blocking for a moment the glare of the sun. He looked down at me through thick eyeglasses, his pale features soft and wistful.

“She wants to see you,” he said. “I have to take you.”

Volz spoke with a German accent, so his w’s sounded like v’s and his v’s like f’s. What he’d said came out, “She vants to see you. I haf to take you.”

I stood, folded the thin blanket, and hung it across a rod attached to the wall so that it would be available for the next child who occupied the room, knowing that, like as not, it would be me again.

Volz shut the door behind us. “Did you sleep okay? How is your back?”

Often a strapping preceded time in the quiet room, and last night had been no exception. My back ached from the welts, but it did no good to talk about it.

“I dreamed about my mother,” I said.

“Did you now?”

The quiet room was the last in a row of rooms in a long building that had once been the outpost stockade. The other rooms—all originally cells—had been turned into storage spaces. Volz and I walked along the old stockade and across the yard toward the administration building, a two-story structure of red stone set among stately elms that had been planted by the first commandant of Fort Sibley. The trees provided the building with constant shade, which always made it a dark place.

“Pleasant dream, then?” Volz said.

“She was in a rowboat on a river. I was in a boat, too, trying to catch up with her, trying to see her face. But no matter how hard I rowed, she was always too far ahead.”

“Don’t sound like a good dream,” Volz said. He was wearing clean bib overalls over a blue work shirt. His huge hands, nicked and scarred from his carpentry, hung at his sides. Half of the little finger on his right hand was missing, the result of an accident with a band saw. Behind his back, some of the kids called him Old Four-and-a-Half, but not me or Albert. The German carpenter had always been kind to us.

We entered the building and went immediately to Mrs. Brickman’s office, where she was seated behind her big desk, a stone fireplace at her back. I was a little surprised to see Albert there. He stood straight and tall beside her like a soldier at attention. His face was blank, but his eyes spoke to me. They said, Careful, Odie.

As he turned to leave, Volz put a hand on my shoulder, the briefest of gestures, but I appreciated what it meant.

Mrs. Brickman said, “I’m concerned about you, Odie. I’m beginning to believe that your time at Lincoln School is almost at an end.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I didn’t think it was necessarily a bad thing.

The superintendent wore a black dress, which seemed to be her favorite color. I’d overheard Miss Stratton, who taught music, tell another teacher once that it was because Mrs. Brickman was obsessed with her appearance and thought black was slimming. It worked pretty well, because the superintendent reminded me of nothing so much as the long, slender handle of a fireplace poker. Her penchant for the color gave rise to a nickname we all used, well out of her hearing, of course: the Black Witch.

“Do you know what I’m saying, Odie?”

“I’m not sure, ma’am.”

“Even though you’re not Indian, the sheriff asked us to accept you and your brother because there was no room at the state orphanage. And we did, out of the goodness of our hearts. But there’s another option for a boy like you, Odie. Reformatory. Do you know what that is?”

“I do, ma’am.”

“And is that where you would like to be sent?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I thought not. Then, Odie, what will you do?”

“Nothing, ma’am.”

“Nothing?”

“I will do nothing that will get me sent there, ma’am.”

She put her hands on her desk, one atop the other, and spread her fingers wide so that they formed a kind of web over the polished wood. She smiled at me as if she were a spider who’d just snagged a fly. “Good,” she said. “Good.” She nodded toward Albert. “You should be more like your brother.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll try. May I have my harmonica back?”

“It’s very special to you, isn’t it?”

“Not really. Just an old harmonica. I like to play. It keeps me out of trouble.”

“A gift from your father, I believe.”

“No, ma’am. I just picked it up somewhere. I don’t even remember where now.”

“That’s funny,” she said. “Albert told me it was a gift from your father.”

“See?” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “Not even special enough to remember where I got it.”

She considered me, then said, “Very well.” She took a key from a pocket of her dress, unlocked a drawer of the desk, and pulled out the harmonica.

I reached for it, but she drew it back.

“Odie?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Next time, I keep it for good. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am. I do.”

She gave it over and her spindly fingers touched my hand. When I returned to the dormitory, I intended to use the lye soap in the lavatory there to scrub that hand until it bled.

Customer reviews

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It is mentioned in the description for this book that if one liked 'Where the Crawdads Sing,' then the reader would also like this book. Since I loved 'Crawdads,' I selected it even though I was unfamiliar with the author, William Kent Krueger. While the story is different from 'Crawdads,' I agree with the assessment that anyone liking one will like the other. I thoroughly enjoyed and loved both books.

'This Tender Land' takes place during the Great Depression. Four boys at Lincoln School, a school where Native American children are forcibly sent to be educated, run away. Giving away the reasons would spoil the story as would mentioning the resolution to the mystery of how two Irish boys ended up at this particular school.

Some will question how four children, especially the four year old, could so successfully fend for themselves. Those questioners undoubtedly are comparing today's youth to those in 1932. There is no comparison. Children back then were resilient and toughened to hard work and adept at surviving. They encountered adults along the way who provided some assistance as well. Plus having no choice but to fend for themselves or get arrested provided plenty of incentive to survive on their own.

The author took the same journey down the Mississippi River that he sends the children on in their canoe which would explain why their journey feels authentic. The people they meet and adventures they have is a great story. Some of those encountered on their journey to finding a 'home and family' are an adult Native American hobo type, a faith healer and her entourage and a family in one of the Hoovervilles that sprang up all over the country due to people losing farms and jobs. All along the way they know the law is looking for them as the headmistress at Lincoln School very much wanted the four year old child for reasons that would be a spoiler. She wanted rid of the other three children after she retrieves incriminating records they took from the school when running away.

This book should became a modern day classic. The desire for a home with a family and questioning God and faith woven into this great story provides depth. While I read the review copy and there may be changes to the final copy, this statement is meaningful whether it remains or not. In reference to nightmares by the younger brother (the adult storyteller of this story) it is noted: "Everything that's been done to us we carry forever. Most of us do our damnedest to hold on to the good and forget the rest. . . ." (Page 126, review copy.) There are a couple more sentences to this very true statement as we are all a sum total of our life experiences whether we admit to it or aware of it or not.

Readers of classic literature and of just plain ole good stories will not regret pre-ordering this book. As I mentioned I was unfamiliar with Mr. Krueger but immediately on finishing this book, I ordered "Ordinary Grace" and will order other books by him as I read along. A sad regret of my own life is that there are more good authors writing far more good books than I'll ever be able to read! I simply loved this book. Highly recommended.

Every once in a while, a reviewer uses the superlative assertion: “If you only read one book this year, it should be…” I’ve never made this assertion (because, frankly, I can’t imagine such a circumstance) but if I were to recommend a singular, VERY IMPORTANT BOOK, it would indeed be “This Tender Land” by William Kent Krueger.

This novel really has everything one could wish for: vivid characterizations, historical verisimilitude, an intricate and fast-moving plot, and honest confrontation with the reality of good and evil as it is played out in the lives of ordinary people challenged by the ordeals of the Great Depression. Although some might question the authenticity of the maturity levels attributed to the two youngest children, “almost” 13-year-old narrator Odie and 4-year-old Emmy, it doesn’t come across as in any sense contrived. These are children already aware that while fantasy can lighten challenging circumstances, there is a base line of grim reality which must be negotiated.

This story also has a unifying thread of spirituality, love and hope which – while never intrusive or preachy – powerfully enriches the narrative. The two vignettes of the children’s encounters with Sister Eve and her healing ministry as well as with the Schofield family in the shanty town of “Hopersville” give deep insight into the ways in which community and compassion provide the impetus for survival even in the darkest times. In addition, though the book lays out the infamous history of the betrayal of the Indian people (specifically the Sioux, given the upper-Midwestern setting of the story) by the Government and greedy, abusive whites, it allows forgiveness and redemption to play a significant role. Author Krueger has accomplished a marvel of a work which simultaneously challenges, convicts, and uplifts.

I have read everything this author publishes as his books are always welcome friends. But this one stands alone. It is a wonderful story with twists and turns sure to keep you guessing. The characters are so real I felt as though I actually knew them and throughout the story are the pieces of wisdom for which the author is known. I did not want this book to end, but I couldn’t put it down so the end came too soon!

The world was in the throes of the Great Depression in 1932, the time in which this story takes place. The Lincoln School in Minnesota is as harsh if not more so than the Great Depression. Hundreds of kidnapped Native American children, torn from their families; their language; their culture are shipped off to the Lincoln School ostensibly to be educated. Odie O'Banion, 12 is one to challenge the punitive and arbitrary system. He is a regular whipping boy for the school superintendent and understandably fears for his life. Odie and his brother Albert encourge their friends Mose and Emmy to run away. They take off into the woods; find a canoe and brave the Mississippi River in the hopes of finding homes.

The four runaways are very interesting and well drawn characters as are the people they meet in their travels. This is a wonderful adventure story despite the backdrop of the Great Depression and the horrific abuse the inmates, er wards suffer at the Lincoln School. Sadly, the runaways face some adversities in their travels, but nothing to the level of what they knew at the Lincoln School. (A good companion book to this one is Jodi Picoult's "Second Glance” which addresses Native American exploitation and legally sanctioned enforced sterilization and incarceration.)

A Depression era Huckleberry Finn retelling, of sorts, but a wonderful story that will keep readers riveted and afloat to the very last page.

This is for children. Unless you are pre-teen or teen, there is nothing here of the Cork O'Connor...I wish the authorhad specified, as Patterson does, what is for children and what can be read by adults, so that no mistake will be made.

Top international reviews

Pacific Surf

5.0 out of 5 starsAn important read.

Reviewed in Canada on October 11, 2019

Verified Purchase

This book did remind me of a saga, but there is so much more in this journey of the spirit. The activities at the residential school triggered a lot of pain and sorrow as it reminded me of my relatives who had to attend in Canada. These atrocities are still very real for them. The twist in this story is the two non-Native boys who also had to attend this school.

Please don't take the treatment of the Native boy, at a very young age, lightly, as this attitude toward Natives still exists today. So many missing and murdered, especially the women.

I found myself rooting for these four orphans as they traversed the land, trying to stay one step ahead of danger. Their bond with each other is realistic and the narrative form adds to the story. A book well worth reading!

I am so excited to tell the world, about this book. And William Kent Krueger’s other book Ordinary Grace. These two books have made my reading this year, so exciting. These must become classics. In my mind with the love of reading. With memories of the thrill I received by reading Ordinary Grace, it reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird, not in story line but in pure enjoyment . And This Tender Land, swept me off my feet. A Ride more exciting then Huckleberry Finn. Loved the characters. I am so glad to be along for their journey.

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